Spintronics for Quantum Information Society

Have you ever heard of the terms spintronics and spinelectronics? The electronics represented by computers is a technology to control the “electric charge” of electrons using the electric field. The electron has angular momentum called “spin”, which causes magnetism, in addition to its “electric charge”. Magnetic recorders, including tape recorders, video recorders, and hard disk drives, which record information via the magnetic orientation by controlling the “spin” using the magnetic field have been developed. Recently, there has been active research to further develop the electronics by controlling both “electric charge” and “spin”, the two degrees of freedom of the electron. In this presentation, I will explain the development and prospects for this research field, called spintronics, by giving examples of actual devices.